The making of the nitrous-oxide gas itself was one of many similar tasks assigned to the Manufacturing Department of our Red Cross, of which Major Arthur W. Kelly was department chief. He ordered a huge gas-making plant from America which, after some considerable delay, finally was set up at Montreau, fifty miles distant from Paris. In the meantime the Red Cross had discovered a man in the French Army who had had some experience in the making of nitrous oxide. He was released from active army service and at once started to work making an emergency supply, the limited quantities carried to France by Colonel Crile having become completely exhausted. This small plant had a daily capacity of about 4,000 gallons. But when the bigger machinery from America had finally been set up--in the midsummer of 1918--this output was increased to 75,000 gallons a day. This could easily have been doubled, had it not been for a single limiting factor--the extreme difficulty of securing 3,280 gallon cans in which the gas was transported. Finally the Red Cross secured some hydrogen tanks that had been captured from the Germans in their first July defeats. It was then and not until then that the nitrous-oxide plant began running at anything like its real capacity. And with the definite result that from September, 1917, to October 23, 1918, our Red Cross was able to supply our army with 699,420 gallons of this precious anæsthetic, its own hospitals with 405,620 gallons, and some miscellaneous institutions with an additional 251,110 gallons, while it saw Great Britain formally acknowledge nitrous oxide as an anæsthetic _par excellence_ and even conservative France making the first steps toward its adoption. * * * * * A few of the medical and surgical requisitions of a typical American Army Division--the Second--upon our Red Cross are before me as I write. They are indicative of the overwhelming demands that were made upon it, not only from every corner of the front, but from every corner of France that was occupied by our fighting men--and what corner was not? It was at the request of the chief surgeon of this Division that one of its field hospitals--originally supplied direct from the army's own sources of supply--was amplified by the American Red Cross, by the use of Bessoneau tents and other equipment so as to become practically a mobile unit, capable of handling far heavier cases. The supplying of the equipment shown by these requisitions began while the division was still in the vicinity of Montdidier and continued until after it had moved to Meaux and was in active preparation for its great rôle at Château-Thierry. In addition to the Bessoneau tents, the following were the requisitions which were delivered to this single formation while it was under heavy pressure: _June 1_: 1 tortoise tent and 100 collapsible cots.